Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 180: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 165

July 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #53

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"Only Twelve of Us May Live!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★

"Beware of Tomorrow!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

"The Stranger in Space!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Vault of Evil #20)

"Shadows in the Night!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★

"He Made the Machines Go Mad!" (a: Don Heck) ★

A runaway planet heads right for Canopus Minor, a world located in a galaxy far, far away. The world leaders are in a panic since there is only one space ship available and its occupancy is a mere twelve. How will the leaders pick the lucky dozen who will survive the cataclysmic collision? The twelve youngest? Twelve most intelligent? Twelve with the best hair? Luckily, miles from the capital toils brilliant but exhausted Sfeen, who's trying to come up with a way to save the entire population. Sfeen isn't tired from his research but from the nagging of his ball-and-chain, Urbaam, who seemingly does nothing but cook dinner and complain.

In the eleventh hour, his work complete, Sfeen contacts the leaders and tells him to gather the entire population of Cannibus Sativa around the rocket ship. He then has his friends and neighbors walk through a line of electricity. That quick and painless zap reduces each person to about one inch tall, easily fitting the fourteen million souls aboard the Rocketship X-250. Relieved about saving all their constituents, the leaders ask Sfeen to whip up a gizmo to shrink 140,000,000 ham sandwiches to micro-size. Happy ending, nothing new to "Only Twelve of Us May Live!" Let's see the lost panel that shows the sleeping arrangements and the tiny toilets for all these little people.

A strange old man, supported by a cane and sporting a trench coat, shows up at a police precinct and warns that the train carrying the ultra-fancy telescope lens will be destroyed. Of course, the cops laugh and tell the old man to grab a hunk of highway. Believe it or not, the lens is destroyed when a rock slide derails the train. The next day, the stranger shows up at "Project Mole," a top secret digging experiment in the Arizona desert and warns of a disaster to come. Again the seer is rebuffed, and again disaster strikes. 

Mike Wells, World News correspondent, hears of the predictions and begs his editor to let him write up a story on the phenom. Sensing that the old man might show up, Mike heads for the launching of Rocketship X-2500 in Florida and is not disappointed when he witnesses firsthand the dismal treatment of the prognosticator. Even when Mike warns the base colonel about the stranger's track record, the launch goes on. Seconds after lift-off, the rocket explodes and the old man walks away, swearing he'll never help these morons again!

If you're here for Ditko's art, that's fine, I understand, but the script for "Beware of Tomorrow!" is like a cheese grater, filled with holes (in logic). Why does Mike seem to be in the right place at all the right times? Why is this mystery man showing up at what seem to be minor disasters? The final panels have Mike asking the stranger how he knew so much about the future, with the man's reply being, "To me, this isn't the future. But the past!" Yep, another visitor from our future trying to undo some event which will trigger something even bigger down the line. Our "savior" lets it be known that now he realizes that the past can't change because then there would be no future. Well then, does that mean in the future any dunderhead can jump in a time machine and attempt a do-over and we just got lucky this time? I'm so confused.

In the 29th Century, astronaut Frank Mason stops at one of those newfangled self-serve gas stations in space to put petrol in his X-671 (definitely an upgrade from X-2000) when he notices another X-671 landing at the next pump. Well, that's interesting, thinks Frank, since there aren't many of these models flying around the galaxy right now. Curious about the coincidence, Frank gets on his telecaster and contacts "The Stranger in Space!" who answers his question with alarming replies. Frank thinks this might be a holdup, so he grabs his blaster and heads over to the other ship. When the hatch is opened, Frank meets... Frank! You see, one Frank was coming from Earth and the other was heading to Earth and one of them got duplicated in the space/time continuum or some such nonsense. Let's just leave it there. Hilariously enough, the final panel basically says, "Who knows how these things happen and who knows how this will right itself?" as though our uncredited writer threw up his hands and gave up. Kinda like I did.

Dumbest story of the month award goes to "Shadows in the Night!" (another head-scratching title), wherein soap scientist (no, I'm serious) Elias Burbank can't concentrate on new soap formulae when he's convinced there's an invisible world that exists right next to our own. It's never explained how Elias came to this startling conclusion (and, in a hilariously heated discussion between our kooky egghead and his two lab compadres, one of the other scientists wonders if there's really an invisible world, "then why can't we see it?!") and we get the standard twist that the world he's trying to find is Earth. Next!

Do I have to? Okay then, let's be quick. "He Made the Machines Go Mad!" is the 700th Atlas story of 1959 to document the perils of building the perfect humanoid. Stop me if you've heard this one before: Android XTT-4 slips a gear and becomes the most powerful android in the world, able to control every machine ever invented. The only thing that stands between XTT-4 and complete domination of the human race is the man who invented him. In the end, the moral is: don't invent anything ever again.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #4

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"The Invisible Army" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★

"One of Our Spacemen is Missing!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★★

"The Voice of Doom!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★★

"Beware of the... Robots!" (a: Al Williamson) ★★

"One of Us is a Martian!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

Hendrik Muir has finally perfected his groundbreaking gizmo that can make two hundred men at a time invisible. But, of course, Muir lives in Commieland, so when dictator Igor Zetaxas gets wind of the contraption, he has Muir dragged to the palace, pronto. When Hendrik hears the leader's plan, he informs Igor that his machine will not be used for evil means. Quicker than you can say "Siberia!," Hendrik is tossed into a small cell and told he will rot there until he consents to "loaning" the Reds his machine.

Weeks pass and Hendrik's resolve does not weaken, so Zetaxas visits the man in prison and tells him that, if the machine is not turned on immediately, Hendrik's wife and child will join him in solitude. The brilliant but weak scientist gives in and Zetaxas arranges to have his top two hundred military men brought to a small field. There, Hendrik zaps the soldiers and, sure enough, they disappear. Igor Zetaxas roars his approval and approaches "The Invisible Army." He realizes finally that not only are they invisible but they've vanished. Hendrik laughs and tells the crooked despot that the machine has sent the men to another dimension. Hendrik Muir is actually the leader of a resistance movement and his army is closing in on the capital as they speak. Glory be to freedom. 

Lester Wells and his space crew are orbiting in Star Cluster System 472 when they come across a planet that is startlingly similar to Earth in its oxygen levels and plant life. Lester's co-pilot Jim Stack wants to voyage down immediately to the planet's surface and take samples, but Les warns that they do not know enough about the lifeforms below. Jim poo-poos that, tells Les he's a wussy, and teleports down in a party of four explorers. The plant life indeed is excellent and Jim has brief thoughts of murdering his crewmen and bringing the flowers back to Earth and opening up a florist shop (sorry, that was the pre-code first draft), but good manners win out and they continue their expedition.

One by one, the men begin to disappear suspiciously and Jim radios Les to let him know something strange is going on. By the time Les gets the exploro-pod unhooked from the ship and arrives at the spot where Jim was supposed to be standing, the entire party has vanished into thin air. Well, not quite, since Jim is a brilliant (if slightly unmasculine) technician who tracks his comrades to a nearby field, where he discovers that the plant life is mobile and very hostile; trees have tied up the four explorers in their vines and seem to have bad intentions. Les lets the hyper-afterburners rip in full view of the tree-people; the walking elms exit stage left and the prisoners are freed to join their comrades back in the X-2500. They all have a laugh and head back to Earth to have a salad and reclaim their superiority over foliage. "One of Our Spacemen is Missing!" (a misleading title to be sure, since four spacemen are missing) is a fairly enjoyable and wholly laughable bit of nonsense, the highlight of which is a panel where the giant trees run like hell away from the flames.

An amateur ham radio operator somehow intercepts transmissions from what he believes is outer space, detailing an all-out war between two armies. Turns out "The Voice of Doom!" is being sent from a nearby ant hill! Clever twist and some dynamite Burgos art.

Al Williamson's art is the only saving grace of the ridiculous "Beware of the... Robots!" In the 23rd century, assembly line worker Joe Hughes loses his job to an android and is so outraged that he writes an article for the local paper about the dangers of robots. The piece is so popular that it leads to more exposure, including best-selling books, TV, and nationwide fame. Once Joe has all the dough, he does a 180 and decides that mechanical men are actually good for mankind because they push humans out of jobs and force them to focus on other vocations. Oh, okay, that's some new way of thinking, I guess. 

Atlas's Number Three Most Favorite Plot Device of 1959, the Martian (right behind the time machine and the android), gets a Ditko coat of paint on "One of Us is a Martian!" (another nonsensical title), wherein Earth preps the first rocket to Mars and the Red Planet reacts. Martians head to Earth to blow the spaceship to smithereens, but (since they're only one inch tall) they accidentally set their suicide mission on a little boy's toy rocket. If these Martians had only read Atlas funny books of the 1950s, they would have seen that this kind of silly mistake happens frequently.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #4

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"I Was a Prisoner of the Martians!" (a: Joe Sinnott)  ★★

(r: Creatures on the Loose #21) 

"My Forbidden Paintings!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

"I Made Time Stand Still" (a: Tom Gill) ★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #20) 

"I Love a Mermaid!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★1/2

(r: Giant-Size Chillers #2) 

"The Man Who Floats in Space!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

Darius Wolfe is the biggest director in Hollywood and he makes sure everyone knows it. He takes his crew into the desert to film a new sci fi picture, unaware that real Martians are on their way to invade and capture an Earthling to take back to their planet. They land right near where the movie is being filmed and, coincidentally, they look just like the Martians in the flick! The real Martians grab Wolfe and take him aboard their ship; the cast and crew think it's all part of the movie. After taking off, the Martians discover that the added weight of Wolfe causes their ship to shake, so they return to Earth to fix it. Will the cast and crew come to Wolfe's aid or will they let the Martians take off again with him in tow?

In addition to the incredible coincidence that real Martians are dead ringers for movie Martians, I find myself wondering why Atlas comic book aliens often seem to have one big eye. Don't you need two eyes to see in 3-D? Wouldn't these advanced races be more likely to have extra eyes? Joe Sinnott's art is good, as usual, and "I Was a Prisoner of the Martians!" is reasonably fun until the dopey last panel, in which Wolfe realizes that his poor treatment of the cast and crew makes it unlikely that they'll rescue him. These moralizing conclusions are no fun.

Crane is a painter who is down on his luck. He meets a bum on a park bench and the man sells him a magic paint brush for a buck. The artist paints himself as handsome, and he suddenly looks great! He paints a picture called "Freedom" and is hailed as the world's greatest painter. Finally, he paints himself as a dictator and soon finds himself in charge of the country of Mythavia. Too bad Crane ignored the bum's warning that he'll live to regret using the magic paint brush! His painting of "Freedom" inspires the Mythavians to rebel and soon Crane is in prison.

Don Heck's art is fair to middling on "My Forbidden Paintings!" This is another story about being careful what you wish for, and it ends with an unfortunate panel (just like the story that precedes it) where the main character sits and swears to change his ways, having learned his lesson.

Sydney Burr was trying to invent a time machine, but instead his machine makes everything and everyone but him stand stock still. Like every single other Atlas character, he decides to use this as a way to get rich quick. He runs around town, robbing people, stores, the bank, and so on. He returns to his lab and pulls the lever on his machine, certain he'll be able to enjoy his newfound wealth. Oops! The cops arrive and tell him that, although everyone was standing still, they saw everything he did.

"I Made Time Stand Still" has a bad script and worse art. Tom Gill drew The Lone Ranger for Dell for more than a decade--remind me not to pick up any issues at the next comic convention.

For years, a man has been drawn to the sea, always searching for something. In the Caribbean, he encounters a beautiful mermaid named Alethea and it's love at first sight! She heads below the surface of the water at sunset and the man heads back to port, where he is roundly jeered. Next day, the man heads out to sea again and sees Alethea once more. "I Love a Mermaid!" he declares and dives into the sea to follow her. He discovers that he can breathe underwater and has a tail, so they live happily ever after.

I was a bit confused by this dud. Are we supposed to take away that the man had a tail all along? Carl Burgos never shows us the man below the waist until the last panel, where his merman parts are revealed, but you'd think the guy would have wondered why his legs were replaced by a giant fin. Maybe that's why he was always drawn to the sea. I don't understand why the mermaid wears a skintight yellow shirt with a yellow bra outside the shirt. I guess I just don't follow mermaid fashion.

"The Man Who Floats in Space!" is a decoy set out by Bogane, the Martian space pirate, to catch every ship that comes close enough to investigate. Three spacemen hide inside an asteroid and get inside Bogane's lair. Soon, the Space Patrol uses a real floating man to capture Bogane and get rid of the menacing decoy.

Ditko's art is wasted on this wretched tale. How much more godawful science fiction will we have to endure before things get more interesting around here? We're just two tears and four months away from Fantastic Four #1.-Jack

Next Week...
Don Heck Helps Us
Blow Bye-Bye Kisses
To Two More Titles